“As the sun gets successively more blank with each day, due to lack of sunspots, it is also dimming. According to data from NASA’s Spaceweather, so far in 2017, 98 days (28%) of the days observing the sun have been without sunspots.

“Across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, the sun’s output has dropped nearly 0.1% compared to the Solar Maximum of 2012-2014.”

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“Yesterday at Cape Canaveral, SpaceX launched a new sensor to the International Space Station named TSIS-1,” says reader Marcus. Its mission: to measure the dimming of the sun. As the sunspot cycle plunges toward its 11-year minimum, NASA satellites are tracking a decline in total solar irradiance (TSI).

“It appears that total Solar Irradiance is dropping,” says Marcus. “Although it may be a small change, small changes in the Sun’s output seem to have a large effect on this planet.
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Total spectral irradiance is not the only factor. As we head towards the next solar minimum cosmic radiation has increased by 13% over the last 2 years. As we head into the next grand minimum that will continue to increase. A group led by Henrik Svensmark in Denmark and ongoing cloud seeding experiments conducted at CERN both show that cosmic rays have a cloud seeding effect. The opposite effect (Forbush Decrease) takes place during periods of high solar activity. Cloud cover can have a dramatic effect on overall temperature. If you want to know what’s true in this life you’re not going to find it in the news.

One long time commenters and contributor is the Astrophysicist specializing in solar studies – Leif Svaarlgard of Stanford.

He is definitely not a warminist.
In fact has great disdain for those “Activist Scientists” who sprout data and theories with out the “real scientific facts” to back up their argument.

His take : Solar cycle 24 has a long way to go. Most likely with reduced solar wavelengths including sunspot activity.
He is also advocating a much reduced active sun for solar cycle 24.
He’s not quite ready to call out a possible maunder minimum or such however he is likely to come more online with this into the transition to solar cycle 25.

TSI is not yet at minimum level for this stage of a solar cycle but the way the suns activity is decreasing there will be a new recorded low in the months ahead.

Here’s the warmest theory.
The Sun is constant – allowing for it’s more or less 11 years cycle.

Here’s the reality.
The Sun is not constant Astrophysicists will tell you that.

I’m guessing that some of the planks of warmism is that the climate is more or less constant with 4 seasons that don’t change much. If there is serious change it must be man’s fault and of course if there is going to be an ice age the elites will determine when and if it will happen. This is like the kind of thinking that says that the earth is flat, the sun orbits the earth and that the earth and all creation is not much more than 6,000 years old. Some silly savages need an education and a reality check at the very least.

Prepare for propagandists to say this variation is negligible, when in truth they just do not know how it affects the weather and climate overall. They just do not know what the overall effect will be.
History shows a solar minimum always precedes cooler, tougher times.

The evidence of the last four UK winters – all very mild, spring flowers in December etc, – and now so far another mild one forecast, suggest anything but cooling. But who knows? The calm before the cooling?? Or a warming world? East QBO which does not bring colder weather? All influx because of cooling? It is all up for grabs. and warming enthusiasts carry on as normal.

Hi Roger,
Our last four mild winters are all due the prevailing South Westerly wind from a warmish Mid- Atlantic region covered with the Azores High which gives us warmth in summer and freezing cold winters when it parks its self over the North Sea in January or February.
However, have you noticed that the weather has become far more meridional? With blocking patterns of warmth or cold, normally the UK gets one harsh winter during the solar minimum period, the last was in 2010, the next could be this year, or the next after that. But during a Grand Solar Minimum like the one we are in now, we could get many more, and in sequence.
Where do you think Christmas cards and for that matter Christmas tree in the UK came from; from the last Grand Solar Minimum during Victorian times its was called Dalton and that was the last time the Thames froze at sea level sufficient for a frost fair.

0.1%? 0.001. I really thought that output would have to drop by a significant amount for it to induce a tipping point and iceage. This seems like an insignificant amount of drop from sunspot frequent and no sunspot times. Some research shows that it is more complicated (isn’t everything?) than thought;
Excerpt from:https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/08jan_sunclimate

“One of the participants, Greg Kopp of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, pointed out that while the variations in luminosity over the 11-year solar cycle amount to only a tenth of a percent of the sun’s total output, such a small fraction is still important. “Even typical short term variations of 0.1% in incident irradiance exceed all other energy sources (such as natural radioactivity in Earth’s core) combined,” he says.

Of particular importance is the sun’s extreme ultraviolet (EUV) radiation, which peaks during the years around solar maximum. Within the relatively narrow band of EUV wavelengths, the sun’s output varies not by a minuscule 0.1%, but by whopping factors of 10 or more. This can strongly affect the chemistry and thermal structure of the upper atmosphere.”

People here may be interested in the effects of cosmic ray’s influence on cloud cover.
This paper http://orbit.dtu.dk/ws/files/125597785/Svensmark_et_al_2016_Journal_of_Geophysical_Research_Space_Physics.pdf by Svensmark, J.; Enghoff, Martin Andreas Bødker; Shaviv, N. J.; Svensmark, Henrik, shows that there can be a large degree correlation between increased cosmic rays and cloud cover formation.
Essentially the paper say that cosmic rays increase the formation of long persistence sulfuric acid in the upper atmosphere. This acid provides —

“We therefore conclude that,

• Responses are found in the cloud microphysical parameters in the days following Forbush decreases[FD].
The sign and size of the response in all the parameters are consistent with changes derived from cloud micro-physics. The size of the responses are of the order of a 2% change in cloud fraction for the strongest FDs.

• A correlation between the magnitude of the FD events and the effect on aerosol/cloud physics has been found in all data sets (AERONET, ISCCP, MODIS and SSM/I).

• The signs of the responses are as expected from a cosmic ray effect on cloud microphysics.
These results show with high confidence that there is a real impact of Forbush decreases on cloud microphysics. The suggested causal chain of reactions responsible for the observed correlations begins with a solar coronal mass ejections resulting in a FD with fewer cosmic rays → less atmospheric ionization → less aerosol nucleation → fewer formed CCN → fewer cloud droplets → larger cloud droplets, decrease in cloud fraction, cloud optical thickness, and in cloud emissivity. Finally since the droplets are larger removal by rain is more likely and is consistent with the reduction in liquid water content. We note that a J mechanism cannot be ruled out.
In conclusion, the results supports the suggestion that ions play a significant role in the life-cycle of clouds.”

As theoretical as this paper is, it shows remarkable correlation to actual observations.

Guys and gals, I had a vision of the Snowball Earth. This Snowball Earth could kill all of the humans off the planet. That future event make me sad because the human life is so valuable. The Snowball Earth mode could cover the whole planet for while.